Automotive retailer Lithia Motors (NYSE:LAD) will be reporting results tomorrow before market hours. Here’s what to look for.
Lithia missed analysts’ revenue expectations by 2.9% last quarter, reporting revenues of $9.22 billion, up 11.4% year on year. It was a satisfactory quarter for the company, with a solid beat of analysts’ EBITDA estimates.
Is Lithia a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free.
This quarter, analysts are expecting Lithia’s revenue to grow 17.6% year on year to $9.03 billion, improving from the 10.5% increase it recorded in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to come in at $7.20 per share.
Analysts covering the company have generally reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business to stay the course heading into earnings. Lithia has missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates five times over the last two years.
Looking at Lithia’s peers in the automotive and marine retail segment, some have already reported their Q4 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. OneWater delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 3.2%, beating analysts’ expectations by 11.7%, and MarineMax reported a revenue decline of 11.2%, falling short of estimates by 3.7%. OneWater traded up 17.8% following the results while MarineMax was also up 10%.
Read our full analysis of OneWater’s results here and MarineMax’s results here.
Investors in the automotive and marine retail segment have had steady hands going into earnings, with share prices flat over the last month. Lithia is up 5.4% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $400.38 (compared to the current share price of $369.47).
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